Cardio sucks, but it’s undoubtedly vital to do to give yourself a truly high level of fitness. As a side note, I’ve never really felt that circuit weight training provided an effective resistance workout OR cardiovascular workout—but I don’t particularly enjoy monotonously plodding along for 30 or 45 minutes, or even an hour at a time, and I think most men don’t either (regardless of whether or not you believe the “liberals run, conservatives lift” dichotomy).

And then there’s doing stationary cardio such as ellipticals, treadmills, bikes, and the like. I personally find these to be even more soul crushing than standard cardio: they take all of the “fun” of locomotory cardio, but with the added sense of being a gerbil running on a wheel.

So what do you do if you have better things to be doing? As I’ve mentioned in the past, I have until very recently been recovering from a severely dislocated foot, and while forced to use cardio machines, I came across the solution: a fast, extremely intensive cardio training method that will leave you gassed in no more than twenty minutes: Tabata Interval Training.

What?

Tabata Interval Training is named after Dr. Izumi Tabata, sports medicine doctor most famously affiliated with the Japanese Olympic Speed Skating team. He designed a program of intensive interval training for his skaters, alternating between sprints and slow jog/rest periods in equal 30 second intervals to provide a brutal cardiovascular workout that quickly forces the trainee to reach VO2Max (maximum oxygen consumption capacity, aka the closest measure of cardiovascular exertion there is), and exhausts the glycogen stores of the muscles in no more than 20 minutes.

And I emphasize 20 minutes max: simply put, if you are not pouring sweat and utterly exhausted by that point in time, you’re doing it wrong, and need to increase the intensity of your exercise program. I myself can’t even do 20 minutes, I can only do around 13 minutes of this delightfully hellish regimen.

What Tabata Intervals Do For You

The trainee doing Tabata intervals will immediately notice results with this cardio program—most notably vastly increased cardio capacity in all respects—which is to say both in sprinting and moderate intensity sustained cardio. When I started doing this program, I couldn’t even break 10 minutes of intervals, and now that I’ve reached 13 minutes I’ve noticed that my stamina in jogging, swimming, and other sustained cardio activities is much greater than it was before.

Another immediately noticeable benefit to interval training is weight loss—the trainee will notice rapid weight loss alongside their increased endurance capacity. In fact, studies show that it is every bit as effective as regular cardio for increasing endurance and losing weight, but in a fraction of the time.

And lastly, forcing yourself to do just one more 30 second sprint will do wonders for your mental and/or willpower training.

How To Do It

So now you probably want to know how to do these intervals. And luckily, it’s pretty simple—all you need is a timer and some sort of cardio method. Any will do, as long as it is entirely based on your own muscular power. Running, jump rope, swimming, skating, elliptical machines, bicycling, stationary bikes, etc. I specify “your own muscular power” as a way to differentiate it from, say, a treadmill, which moves via programming the machine to go at a certain speed. You can’t do Tabatas on a treadmill, as the treadmill does not quickly and/or seamlessly change speeds.

Warm up a bit and then set the timer for 30 seconds. Do a slow, easy jogging pace until the 30 seconds are up. Then immediately start a sprint, emphasis necessary. Sprint as hard and as fast as you can. Sprint like your life was depending on it!

Maintain this sprinting pace for 30 seconds as well, and then repeat the cycle anew until you can’t anymore. If you can somehow set your timer to beep every 30 seconds, even better.

I must reiterate, you will not last for more than 20 minutes, and for your first time you likely won’t even make 10.

Even though I am now recovered, I still do Tabata intervals because I find that no other form of cardio exercise hits that trifecta of effectiveness, efficiency, and not being an endless slog. And if I, somebody who hates cardio enthusiastically does Tabata interval training, I don’t see what reason you have to not be doing this as well.

Whether you are into cardio or not, Consider this: sitting is terrible for you and shortens your lifespan considerably. Do a google search and consider some of the points made regarding “sitting bad for your health.” At the very least, I recommend doing a lot of walking on top of your preferred workout or lack of. Personally I prefer lifting weights, long walks (on the beach ;)), occasional distance run/competition and hiking in beautiful places.

haha!
that’s nothing
my system is
wake up and immediately sprint as fast as you can out the door for 1 minute
(30 seconds out and 30 seconds back)
then immediately jump back in bed with no warm-up or cool down.

Then pop a blood-pressure lowering med
(whether you need it or not)
and repeat one hour later.

Hey Larsen
This bears some relativity to Bill Philips system in Body for Life, which I have done with my ex if only to get her to drop 20lbs which she did, but more so with what I typically do today on my bike. Not to mention that, I will give this a try on my next jaunt of 20 mins or more.
One point, though, I go out 20 mins with a light load but will come back with 30 to 40 lbs added; groceries, books, etc. Should I max out on the outbound and just breeze on the return?
I am 61 and would like to get to 100 without committing exercise suicide.

kind of off topic, but after a long life of military abuse on my body, ive found i can run occasionally but prefer to save my ankles and knees from additional abuse and pain by using elliptical machines to get a serious low impact cardio workout. I do what i can cardio trainng to kee best functioning heart and lungs, but am very active otherwise outdoors. do what you can as you can. id love to give this articles stated training a shot though.

Your bag work at around 10 minutes or less as you seem to put it is utterly ineffective and I’m sure you lack the technique to properly hit it in the first place, since you boast about beating the “crap out of it”. I also don’t like chumps who give fitness advice out of their ass, so sod off.

High intensity interval training or (HIIT). I have used a tight regimen of sprinting and slow jogging for about 6 months straight at 3x a week. I was a fat lard and lost close to 60 lbs. That’s about 10 lbs/month. With no supplements. I must admit that I also had a strict diet with rice as my only form of carbohydrates and keeping sugar to a minimum (1 can of Arizona green tea a day as a reward after a grueling workout). Now the toll this takes on your body is extreme and maintaing thia kind of training long term is akin to being a pro athlete without the money. Now, being older and smarter, I watch what I eat and balance it out with exercise. If I loafed at the gym during a week, I won’t have my bag of chips during the weekend and might punish myself with no beer for the next week. Life is balance and the more you keep it balanced the less effort you need to make it order to sustain said balance.

I use to do something similar to this, but somewhat less intensive: sprint up a slope (ca 20 seconds), jog down (ca 40 seconds). Never managed to finish more than eight cycles, really exhausting! Cannot even imaging doing 20.

Anyone have experience tower running? That is taking an elevator I the bottom of an apartment building and running up the steps to the top? Without putting your hands on the wall for balance.

One of my first apartments in China was in a 33 storey building- I’d do it three times, and the last 3 storeys on each lap would be frog hops to the top.

Anothrr home had a small mountain range five minutes from my place. It had big uneven stone steps winding around it to the top with plenty of long flat sections with pagodas for rest, you could definitely feel the oxygen getting thinner attempting that! If you ran up during sunrise, as you neared the top you’d see the sun melting the frost from the trees until you came to a grand pagoda with a beautiful view of the city and old boys practicing Taichi. An incredible exercise in willpower driving your legs up those mountain steps, heh.

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